NEW BLOGGER: Timothy Bulone - Flags and Flowers

The flag at McDonalds is at half-staff when I pull into the drive-thru line. It hangs somberly against the leaden grayness of my lunch-time sky. The parking lot is crowded, as it always has been, when I make the foray for last minute cookies or coffee before heading back to my office a short distance away.

But one parking space is empty, save for the memorial flowers and balloons, the smiling portrait of someone who, two weeks now, was alive and drew breath. I watch people getting in and out of their cars. They pause. And look. I interpret their faces, seeing confusion, bewilderment, disbelief.

In the days since the shootings I have seen people hugging each other, clinging to one another, bringing flowers, raising money, some move freely, others seem frozen, hand over mouth as if they are trying to stifle an ernormous anguishing animal cry that wants to explode from within. The cry we all feel inside.

The suddenness of that sad day has passed now and we are left to reckon its meaning, if meaning can be had. Like a half-staff flag and bright flowers on a gray October day, we are reminded that there is much in this life we will never understand, not the least of which is how short life might actually be.